As a U.S. citizen and senior in high school, I know undocumented students have to work twice as hard as others. We should not deny the right to higher education to undocumented students. All students, regardless of immigration status, are the future, and taking away education is like taking money away from the economy. Passing the California Dream Act (AB 130 and 131) would be an investment in a stronger future, giving equal opportunities to all students to strive for the American dream.

Estela Lozano

Abraham Lincoln High School student San Jose

Pitts is wrong about Civil War’s cause

Leonard Pitts’ column (“Civil war was about slavery, nothing more,” April 10) was extremely inaccurate. According to Lincoln, the Civil War was about “saving the Union,” not slavery.

While the South was generally proslavery and many in the North were anti-slavery, the fight was about the South not wanting to pay tariffs on industrial imports from Europe. The North insisted on these tariffs so they could sell their equipment to the South.

Lincoln made this clear many times both before and after he was elected president. In a letter to Horace Greeley on Aug., 22, 1862, Lincoln makes this extremely clear. He also made it clear in his speeches during the election campaign.

Joseph Lonsdale Sr.

Fremont

Republicans created our massive debt

Was Joseph Picone (Letters, April 13) living under a rock during George W. Bush’s reign of greed and incompetence? It was Republican policies that created this massive debt and Democrats that have had to clean it up. Besides, if the GOP is so great at governance, then why is the GOP-dominated Texas statehouse dealing with a budget deficit almost equal to our own?

David Hovgaard

San Jose

U.S. taxpayers have endured enough pain

Our president is asking that the “pain be shared equally” over the next 10 or 12 years of budget cuts and tax increases. I think there are millions of Americans like myself, people who have produced and paid taxes to multiple government entities for 40-plus years, for whom being asked to “share the pain” trivializes our many years of doing just that.

American taxpayers’ serious mistake, and we voters are to be blamed for this, is electing and re-electing representatives of both parties at all levels of government for whom constituents are simply elastic income-generators for the public treasury. My own feeling after these many years is that it doesn’t matter how much money is harvested by our multiple layers of government, it’s never enough. It’s time to stop rewarding irresponsible behavior, no matter your party affiliation, and ask your representatives to respect you for the pain you’ve already shared.

Emery Rogers

San Jose

Welfare recipients are not ‘freeloaders’

Joseph Picone characterizes welfare recipients as “freeloaders” (Letters, April 13) who do not work or contribute, but I and my brothers were welfare recipients when I was 9 and my twin brothers were 6. What kind of work, exactly, does Mr. Picone think we should have done?

Economically disadvantaged elementary-school children are hardly “freeloaders,” and I deeply resent being labeled as such. Welfare kept a roof over our heads and food on the table for a year when my family was in very dire straits. It also kept my brothers and me out of the foster-care system.

If Mr. Picone did just a few minutes’ worth of online research, he would be able to deal in facts instead of tired Republican talking points. In California, more than half of welfare recipients are children.

Your editorial (“Obama must remind voters what he values,” April 12) was a breath of fresh air. You target “the Republicans’ insane argument that deficit-cutting should take precedence over job-creation.” This is especially hypocritical after Republicans demanded a continuation of tax cuts for the richest Americans just four months ago.

Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most successful investors, said, “I think that people at the high end, people like myself, should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.”

In addition, T.W. Cain asserted that the richest 1 percent pay 37 percent of all taxes (Letters, April 9). This is false. In 2007 they paid 28.1 percent of all federal taxes, and had the lowest effective tax rate for state and local taxes.

Scott Weikart

Palo Alto

Seniors paying for others’ entitlements

Entitlements are causing an impasse with budget negotiations, I agree. Entitlements to oil companies (fee waivers), entitlements to corporations (tax loopholes), entitlements to the wealthy (no tax increases). How long do the elderly have to carry these other entitlements on their backs?

Analysts said Sunday's launch of what the Israeli military said was a midrange surface-to-surface missile may have been an attempt by Iran to establish a level of deterrence against Israel, which has repeatedly bombed its military assets in the country.

European leaders have repeatedly said the deal May presented to Parliament last week, painfully negotiated over months and months, was the best they could offer. And they have been reluctant to resume any discussions until Britain can present a more united front.